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Message: <blockquote data-quote="gideonpepys" data-source="post: 7858523" data-attributes="member: 79141">Session 245, Part OneThe Magma ReservoirThough immune to fire, thanks to the wayfarer lantern, they were still half-blinded by the heatwaves and vapours, but could just about make out moving figures on the ‘shore’ where the magma reservoir ended. Rumdoom was more able than others to shrug off the difficulties of the situation, and trudged through the magma towards them. When the mists cleared on reaching the ‘bank’, he found himself in a turbulent room full of groaning pipes, where low-ranking devils were cleaning the metal floor with mops. They turned to regard him in blank surprise. There was evidence of recent carnage in here – body parts and broken chains; their mops were bloody. To the rear of the group, the only alert member bridled at his presence: a succubus unfurled her wings and hissed like a cat.Rumdoom had been told to try to break the devils’ chains.   He had a go at doing so with the Stone of Not – a blunt instrument if ever there was one. He succeeded in obliterating the nearest devil in its entirety.Korrigan ordered everyone else out of the magma.  They responded with alacrity.  Korrigan himself swigged a brass-skin potion that would keep him immune to fire even when the lantern oil ran out.Rumdoom thought that the succubus looked like a threat, and ran up to her; Uru popped a janitor from and immediately melted into the gloom. Quratulain, having jetted out of the magma with her rocket boots, drew her pistols and took out half-a-dozen more mooks. Scanning the room as she did so, she noticed the slumped form of a dead Elofasp Ravant. It looked like it had taken out a whole company before they finished it.Now the succubus muttered a word in infernal and a portal opened just behind her. She darted through it. Leon teleported next to the portal, invisibly. Through it, he saw an immense treasury, with orderly stacks of gold ingots, row upon row, rising to a ceiling height of fifty feet. Gold collected from a thousand worlds. Among the stacks were devils – elite stars, legionnaires, and at least one horned devil. The succubus sought to muster them, though Leon knew her portal was temporary and would wink out shortly. Gupta stood in wonder and tried to tell how long it would take the devils to respond, and where they would do so. The answer was here, in the next five minutes or so.The unarmed janitors, those that had not been slain already – fell back on their only other means of attack, spraying hellfire breath all around them. Needless to say, it didn’t do them any good.While Quratulain dealt with the remaining janitors, Rumdoom used trial and error to figure out how hard it was to break the golden chains with his bare hands.  Assuming he could grab a hold of them, it wasn’t all that difficult, given his knowledge of the runes of destruction. While they did this, Korrigan contacted the Coaltongue telepathically. They had come under fire from the starboard fusils (a rumbling the unit could hear through the hull). The devils did not seem to care about hitting their own windskiffs. But Doverspike’s fog cloud had surged forward and enveloped them before they could be hit. Korrigan told them they were ‘safely’ on board Egalitrix and would continue with their mission. Amielle should let him know if her circumstances changed dramatically. Then he gave Uru the order to naughty word up the engines. This was a general order: keeping out of sight he was to see what he could do to damage Egalitrix.Uru was already on it, looking for somewhere to stick his rod – an immovable rod that he had picked up on Padyer. This mechanised mountain was like a gremlin's playground! Gupta gave him a spectral knife she had found that could cut through any material to aid in his sabotage mission.  Then she drew the Third Sword of Srasma, and focused on Thisraldion:Her hunch that, being of binary gender, Thisraldion could be located by the sword, was proved right.  She knew him to be ‘about six-hundred feet away, up one level, and at 7 o’clock’ (using Uriel’s orientation method, with the magma at ‘six’). Meanwhile, Uriel had transformed into a small, swift bird, and flew about the area searching for exits. He found a large hatch at ‘twelve o’clock’ (assuming the magma was at ‘six’), and reported back. Korrigan looked through the hatch with his psionic powers and found a mechanics shop full of enslaved devils. In the meantime, Uriel had found another exit – an open stairwell to another, louder engine room, where he could see many more chained devils and one or two succubi. (The chamber near the magma was split into two levels, with a gantry throughout at the halfway point giving upper access to more of the machinery. Steps from this mezzanine led to the next level of the fortress proper.) Uru said he thought that would be the actual engine room: pipes from this floor led up there, siphoning energy from the magma reservoir.Leon had spent the time analysing his own teleportation powers. He figured out that the defences around Egalitrix would not interfere with internal teleportation. (But if he wanted to fetch the Huldregarl, he would have to defend against Paelyrion – which he could attempt to do so, now that he was aware that Paelyrion could divert them if they came in from outside.) This done, he suggested a strategy – that they wait for reinforcements to come from the treasury, and teleport out to the now-empty treasury when they arrived.This was such a good idea that they responded to it immediately, gathering atop the gantry, disguised under an illusion (while Uru continued to fiddle with the machinery).  They waited. The roar of the engines could not entirely drown the pounding of the guns.  At length, the devils arrived, rushing through a portal: a succubus, scores of legionnaires, and a horned devil.  At once, Leon spirited the group away.</blockquote>

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